Speaker 1: Uh, this is Behind the Bastards. It's a podcast about Miles. Miles,
Speaker 1: how do you? How do you plan to make all
Speaker 1: of your many crimes? Right? Look, I start by my
Speaker 1: manager said, and my publicist supposed said, go on this podcast.
Speaker 1: So thanks so much for having me, Um, And of course,
Speaker 1: of course always happen to have a work, you know exactly,
Speaker 1: And I think and the first thing what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do is sort of challenge what our conventional definition
Speaker 1: of what a war crime is, Um, And I think
Speaker 1: that's my task today as a guest on your podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for happening. Well, that's fascinating. You know.
Speaker 1: I read about your your your rebranding of war crimes
Speaker 1: and that very wife's column, and I just thought, very brave,
Speaker 1: very brave Barry. Actually it's Bari, So my best friend.
Speaker 1: He refuses to learn her name. That's a nice way
Speaker 1: you should have. Yeah, respect for one of the America's
Speaker 1: greatest journalists since Yeah. Absolutely, she's the Glenn Greenwald of
Speaker 1: Glenn Greenwald's Um. This is the podcast about bad People.
Speaker 1: Tell you all about him, Miles. It's part three of
Speaker 1: our of our series Thomas, How you doing? How you doing?
Speaker 1: We took a little breaky for us. Yeah, good, it
Speaker 1: was good to have the break. I kept telling everybody
Speaker 1: I was doing this, and I was like, the first
Speaker 1: two episodes just fucking spooked me out because it's not like,
Speaker 1: look what this guy did. It would just be like,
Speaker 1: look at the incubator where this thing just grew from.
Speaker 1: And that was the most horrifying ship of all the
Speaker 1: things we've talked about. This this is again I feel
Speaker 1: like you always I will do yourself with even more
Speaker 1: uncomfortable that. That was the original goal when we came
Speaker 1: up with this podcast. You know, I have been lurking
Speaker 1: outside of your house for a while and I emailed
Speaker 1: Sophie saying I would like to really make Miles uncomfortable
Speaker 1: about twice either over like a five year period. UM,
Speaker 1: and that's turned into a very successful part. You know
Speaker 1: how we know he's lying. He would never put that
Speaker 1: in an email. You're right, email exactly. UM. So I
Speaker 1: guess we should probably get back to the tale of
Speaker 1: Mr Clarence Thomas. Now, when we left off with um
Speaker 1: with our old friend, he had gotten a job working
Speaker 1: as the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and the Department
Speaker 1: of Education, now number one this is a job in
Speaker 1: the Reagan administration. So if you are the Assistant Secretary
Speaker 1: for Civil Rights for the d o E and the
Speaker 1: Reagan administration, your job is not to help ensure that
Speaker 1: civil rights laws are abided by in schools. Your job
Speaker 1: is to make sure that nothing is done to protect
Speaker 1: civil rights laws in the Department of Education, because the
Speaker 1: Reagan administration fundamentally did not believe it should exist. And
Speaker 1: in fact, Reagan had campaigned talking about how there shouldn't
Speaker 1: be an Apartment of Education. So that said it was
Speaker 1: one of those Like everyone including Clarence, was aware that
Speaker 1: he got the job because since the Reagan administration was
Speaker 1: going to get up to so much fuckory, they wanted
Speaker 1: to have a black dude somewhere near the civil rights
Speaker 1: position in the Department of Education to like make it
Speaker 1: look like they were less racist than they were. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: and this is exactly the kind of job to his credit,
Speaker 1: I mean credit may not may may not be righting
Speaker 1: to say, but like Thomas had never wanted jobs like this,
Speaker 1: right Like in the past, he had always been like, well, no,
Speaker 1: I want to do energy. I want to do like
Speaker 1: um oil and gas, environmental stuff. I want to do
Speaker 1: something that like people will not be like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: the job he's got because he's the black lawyer, right.
Speaker 1: He wanted to like to push away from work like
Speaker 1: that because I'm Darth Vader, right, yeah, I would, just
Speaker 1: because I'm a bad person. I don't want anyone to
Speaker 1: think that it's because of But this is a job
Speaker 1: that he is getting because he's like a black Republican, right,
Speaker 1: which is what he said he didn't want, But it's
Speaker 1: also the kind of thing he can't turn down. This
Speaker 1: this is a presidential appointment, which is like a bread deal.
Speaker 1: And also, like he himself in the last couple of that,
Speaker 1: I think the episode previous you were saying, like he
Speaker 1: saw it was clear to him the opportunity that present
Speaker 1: that was in front of him by being a black conservative.
Speaker 1: Like so in that sense, it's almost like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you know how why you're going to flourish because you're
Speaker 1: taking advantage of all of that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: but then we're like, but I don't want to be
Speaker 1: diversity Darth Vader higher, yeah, um, and it's it gets
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable. So it's uncomfortable for him despite the fact
Speaker 1: that this is a thing he can't pass up. It's
Speaker 1: uncomfortable for him. For that reason and because a lot
Speaker 1: of basically all of his coworkers in the Reagan administration
Speaker 1: are like the most racist people you can imagine, um,
Speaker 1: because it's the Reagan administration. He regularly described his co
Speaker 1: workers to friends as bigots. Mayor and abramson Wright. In
Speaker 1: the book Strange Justice Quote. Aryl H. Bell, who was
Speaker 1: Secretary of Education at the time, recalled in his memoirs
Speaker 1: being shocked at the sick humor and racist cliches voice
Speaker 1: by some reagularppointees, who, for instance, referred to Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King Jr. As Martin Lucifer Coon Um, called Arabs sand inwards,
Speaker 1: and described Title four, which prohibits sexual or Title nine,
Speaker 1: which prohibits sexual discrimination, as the lesbian's Bill of rights.
Speaker 1: Like not just like you know, guys being like crossing
Speaker 1: like the street or something when they see a black dude,
Speaker 1: guys like dropping hard slurs, the hard ours. Yeah, they're going,
Speaker 1: they're they're letting the clan hood hang all out. And
Speaker 1: I like, and so Mr Clarence Thomas is like, man,
Speaker 1: He's like, I couldn't even couldn't even regale them with
Speaker 1: my porn recaps because talk to them about pornography there.
Speaker 1: So actually I think he probably can't. He was like,
Speaker 1: could you imagine or what's that conversation like where some
Speaker 1: dudes like, yeah, man, you know the fucking Malcolm X
Speaker 1: and Martin lu. I'm glad they got there's you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, because we don't want to, you know what,
Speaker 1: the darkies to get any ideas. And Martin and Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas is like, so I was watching this video of
Speaker 1: three women and cheerleading outfits and you're like, this is
Speaker 1: a conversation and from health waiting room. So the Reagan
Speaker 1: administration models, I think if you were to like have
Speaker 1: a hidden audio recorder in there, it would like any
Speaker 1: given hour of conversation in Reagan's West Wing would be
Speaker 1: too explicit for us to run on Spotify, right. We
Speaker 1: we would get in legal trouble. The FCC would be like,
Speaker 1: we don't even have jurisdiction here, like we're hopping in
Speaker 1: you gotta stop this, and we do historically we do
Speaker 1: not a lot. So my god, but if Thomas was
Speaker 1: uncomfortable at all working alongside you know, not just open racists,
Speaker 1: but like outrageously bigoted people. He was happy working adjacent
Speaker 1: to a man who made a fortune as the mouthpiece
Speaker 1: of literal apartheid South Africa. And I'm gonna quote again
Speaker 1: from the New York Times here quote in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven to seventy eight, when Mr Parker, this is the
Speaker 1: guy we talked about last time, right when Clarence Thomas's
Speaker 1: UH mentors first served as a South African agent, he
Speaker 1: organized the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, which issued
Speaker 1: the quarterly Lincoln Review. The Institute and Review have consistently
Speaker 1: attacked the African National Congress, sanctions against South Africa, and
Speaker 1: the United States civil rights movements, leadership and ideas. Mr
Speaker 1: Parker and Clarence Thomas served on the Reagan Bush Transition
Speaker 1: team for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of which Mr
Speaker 1: Thomas became Commissioner in June nineteen two. Since nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: Mr Thomas has been listed as an editorial advisory board
Speaker 1: member of Mr Parker's Lincoln Review. Mr Keys has been
Speaker 1: a contributing editor. Registration file links under the heading political
Speaker 1: Propaganda show International Public Affairs Consultants held a reception for
Speaker 1: as South African Clients Ambassador. In nineteen eight seven, when
Speaker 1: Pretoria was vigorously fighting sanctions, Mr Thomas, then the e
Speaker 1: e o C chairman, was listed as in attendance. So
Speaker 1: you know, getting getting money and and getting like uh
Speaker 1: feedd at fancy dinners and stuff that are funded by
Speaker 1: the fucking South African apartheid government as part of their
Speaker 1: plan to build US support for continuous Yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: human rights violation, food washing campaign, party washing campaign. Come
Speaker 1: by check out the junket. Be pretty fun. So while
Speaker 1: Thomas's career flourished, though his personal life and I know
Speaker 1: this is going to really hurt you to hear, because
Speaker 1: he was doing so well wasn't shambles. So his first
Speaker 1: wife leaves him because again she's she's a very traditional
Speaker 1: like person in terms of her view of like men
Speaker 1: and women and like wants to be kind of the
Speaker 1: homemaker mom wife. But also she's a very very committed Democrat,
Speaker 1: and when he starts going a hard right, she looks
Speaker 1: at what's he's putting up with in the Reagan administration
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, this is not okay, this is
Speaker 1: not like a thing that I want to So she
Speaker 1: like she fucking bounces um because she yeah, she it's
Speaker 1: funny how like kind of she was such like a
Speaker 1: lib where she's like, my whole vibe was to marry
Speaker 1: this like other liberal black man. But now that you're
Speaker 1: becoming a conservative black man, this is this is not
Speaker 1: good for my brand either. But I'm sure at the
Speaker 1: same time, you don't want to see someone you marry
Speaker 1: suddenly be so like apparently opportunities about how they modify
Speaker 1: their being. And she's marrying a guy. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: was saying the same things to her that he said
Speaker 1: to his grandpa, who was like, I want to get
Speaker 1: be a lawyer so that I can get into civil
Speaker 1: rights so I can help the government. And like, you know,
Speaker 1: he'd worked in a Republican administration before, but it had
Speaker 1: been a liberal republican um and now Thomas is like, no,
Speaker 1: I want to help the chief google of the far right,
Speaker 1: like destroy the civil rights gains of the civil rights movement.
Speaker 1: She's like, no, I don't want to be involved with you. Um.
Speaker 1: He has custody of the kid, which is which is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, on his part breaking a cycle. So I
Speaker 1: guess there's that um that said whether or not he's
Speaker 1: a good parent is um something that's going to depend
Speaker 1: on your own personal opinions on parenting. Friends say Thomas
Speaker 1: was so enraged at his ex wife um and in
Speaker 1: part by the fact that whenever she had the kid,
Speaker 1: he accused her of coddling him um and of encouraging
Speaker 1: a learning disability. So he's that kind of dad where
Speaker 1: he's like by being like this kid clearly as a
Speaker 1: learning disability, and like you're coddling him and you're not
Speaker 1: being hard enough on him and making him work for
Speaker 1: it and all that kind of you know, um, it
Speaker 1: works on animals. Yeah, I want work again, given his
Speaker 1: grandpa hard to see him not being exactly right, and
Speaker 1: also like for you to be raised by such like
Speaker 1: a fucking cold you know, like shadowy figure of a grandpa,
Speaker 1: have no like emotional or support or affection, and then
Speaker 1: like you merely just see like a mother and like
Speaker 1: child relationship, like you're coddling the kid. Gotta slap him more,
Speaker 1: gotta make him work without gloves. Honestly, you should see
Speaker 1: what you do. Like I said, you put a two
Speaker 1: pound dumbbells in in front of a shopping cart. You
Speaker 1: put him in the seat, and you put it down
Speaker 1: a steep hill and just see how he ends up.
Speaker 1: A crash test, just a crash test. That's what you do. Yeah, yeah, myles,
Speaker 1: I'm raising a kid right now. The kid doesn't know it,
Speaker 1: neither do the kids parents. But every day I sneak
Speaker 1: in and I put a lot of what do you
Speaker 1: call it poison oak inside, you know, his clothes for
Speaker 1: the next day. And what's that teaching the kid is
Speaker 1: that life is like a series of blisters, and you
Speaker 1: just got to work through the blisters. You know. Little
Speaker 1: lessons like that really make them stronger. And some say
Speaker 1: it's it's waste, it's wasted because the child is so
Speaker 1: young and not able to process the experience. But what
Speaker 1: you're saying is you said, start him early, start him early, right.
Speaker 1: The only thing they will grow up knowing is the
Speaker 1: feeling of constantly being exposed to poison ivy and that
Speaker 1: will make them strong and reject fast fashion. That's what
Speaker 1: I tell their parents and the letters that I send
Speaker 1: anonymously anyway, So uh. Once he gets split up with
Speaker 1: his wife, Clarence Thomas engages in the normal divorce guy things.
Speaker 1: He gets super into physical fitness right starts getting jacked
Speaker 1: you know, all revenge body. Yeah, he gets the revenge body.
Speaker 1: And of course he throws himself into his work, which,
Speaker 1: given the fact that he'd always been a career guy,
Speaker 1: means he gets like way way more into his job.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know you can't just work out
Speaker 1: and work right, Like, that's not it. I know you
Speaker 1: and I Miles are both just incredibly swoll dudes. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, but you know you need something else, absolutely absolutely. Look,
Speaker 1: I mean they were saying the SEC is coming after
Speaker 1: me because of these gains. Yeah, just because our pecks
Speaker 1: are literally large enough to host a t ceremony on like,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that we don't do other things. I mean
Speaker 1: I could, and I'll do it from time to time,
Speaker 1: but yeah, every now and then. And and Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 1: In addition to stacking gains and working, you know, he's
Speaker 1: got he's got his his favorite hobby, which is pornography,
Speaker 1: which he gets even more disastrously obsessed with. In the
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen eighty two, shortly after he moves into
Speaker 1: his first bachelor pad, he makes friends with a coworker
Speaker 1: named K Savage, which is a pretty cool name. It's
Speaker 1: K with an e um they were both joggers, and
Speaker 1: one day he agreed to take her shopping for running shoes.
Speaker 1: So like their work buddies and like they'll go running
Speaker 1: from time to time, and like she's like, my fucking
Speaker 1: my shoes or ship. Well, let's go out this week
Speaker 1: and we'll get some shoes. We'll go in to run.
Speaker 1: It'll be fun. So she picks him up from his apartment.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a car at this point. He uses
Speaker 1: like a work vehicle to get to and from the office.
Speaker 1: He gets like chauffeurd and stuff. Um, so she has
Speaker 1: to come pick him up from his apartment to go shopping.
Speaker 1: And that's where this subsequent scene, which is related in
Speaker 1: strange justice comes in. And I'm gonna read you a
Speaker 1: quote Miles strap In for this one, buddy. So interior
Speaker 1: shoe store. No no, no, this is when she comes
Speaker 1: to his house. So this is her first time. Ok. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is her first time seeing Clarence in his bachelor pad.
Speaker 1: Interior Clarences bachelor pad. Oh god. Yes. He had only
Speaker 1: recently set up housekeeping and the place, as she recalled,
Speaker 1: was still under furnished. There was little more than a
Speaker 1: mattress on the floor and a stereo, but one of
Speaker 1: her feature made a lasting impression on Savage. Thomas had
Speaker 1: compiled and placed on the floor, and this is her
Speaker 1: her speaking now, a huge, compulsively organized stack of Playboy magazines,
Speaker 1: five years worth of them, organized by month and year.
Speaker 1: The walls of the apartment were also memorably covered. There
Speaker 1: was only one main room, but all of its walls,
Speaker 1: as well as the walls of the little galley, kitchen,
Speaker 1: and even the bathroom door, were papered with center folds
Speaker 1: of large breasted nude women. Savage recalled staring awkwardly about her.
Speaker 1: The display seemed so out of character with everything else
Speaker 1: she knew about Thomas. He was a fanatic about discipline
Speaker 1: and a daily churchgoer. He was serious about his career
Speaker 1: and honest to the point of indiscretion about his ambitious
Speaker 1: plans for the future. Thomas had told her, as he
Speaker 1: had told others, that he planned to replace their good
Speaker 1: Marshal on his retirement from the Supreme Court. But his
Speaker 1: evident enthusiasm for pornography suggested to Savage that Thomas had
Speaker 1: a private side that was very different from his public persona.
Speaker 1: To her, the contrast seemed if she later put it
Speaker 1: a little crazy dude. His dude has wallpapered his empty
Speaker 1: ass apartment in porn center faults. Which if that is
Speaker 1: your like, if that's your thing, fine, but number one,
Speaker 1: you don't ever let anyone else see that apartment, Like
Speaker 1: you sure don't invite your female co worker over. And
Speaker 1: but you know he thought that would maybe in his mind.
Speaker 1: He's like, and that's one. Maybe Ka's cool. That's my
Speaker 1: way of just being completely inappropriate to invite. And also like,
Speaker 1: you know, like when in films when there's like a
Speaker 1: character that is a bunch of ship on their walls,
Speaker 1: you know, it's usually some conspiracy theory ship. So just
Speaker 1: because I have some pictures of the child that I'm
Speaker 1: raising distantly on the wall Viles doesn't make me crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And also like it's weird that you seem to have
Speaker 1: like a design of the house and cad like if
Speaker 1: you're making a whatever, that's another show. But I think
Speaker 1: when you see that in TV and film usually it's like,
Speaker 1: this is what the inside of this character's head is like, right,
Speaker 1: is what you see just plastered on the walls. And
Speaker 1: then to be like clear Tom is existing at a
Speaker 1: steady hum of just porno blasting inside of his skull. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's exactly. It's a perfect reflection of what
Speaker 1: his thoughts are. And it's nothing but pornography bouncing around
Speaker 1: in there, right, because like none of the legal decisions
Speaker 1: makes sense. It's like it's fucking it's fucking wild man um.
Speaker 1: And it's also like I'm sure there is because we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about Nita Hill later. Uh he obviously,
Speaker 1: I think there is like a voyeurs. I think he
Speaker 1: gets off on like put women that he works with
Speaker 1: in uncomfortable situations visa v. Pornography. And maybe part of
Speaker 1: how he protects himself is by also talking to porn
Speaker 1: to all of his coworkers, or maybe he's kind of
Speaker 1: into doing it to everybody, right, But like this goes
Speaker 1: beyond Look again, nothing wrong with porn. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people who like porn. I don't know anyone
Speaker 1: who does this, right, Like, nobody does this, no, And
Speaker 1: this is clearly like like to your point, like that,
Speaker 1: this is how he just eviolates people. And that's that's
Speaker 1: the way of doing it, is to be like surprise porn,
Speaker 1: don't care what you think is appropriate or not. Like
Speaker 1: I'm this is this? Is it welcome? This is talking
Speaker 1: about it? Or you're surrounded by it? Yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be around Clarence Thomas, you can't get away from
Speaker 1: the porn, now, K question like all I can think
Speaker 1: of now, Yeah, we'll talk about Jenny a little bit.
Speaker 1: There's not going to be as many answers as you're
Speaker 1: hoping for. No, No, I can I can only imagine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, sorry, but so so Kay sees this nightmare apartment, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, folks, the correct thing to do when
Speaker 1: you step into your colleagues apartment and see that is
Speaker 1: to leave if you have. If you have a gun,
Speaker 1: pull it and keep it on them until you're safely
Speaker 1: clear of the apartment, because that person is probably going
Speaker 1: to murder you. Um, but no, Clarence Thomas tells her.
Speaker 1: She like, so, she's obviously your k in the situation.
Speaker 1: You have to be gentle about how you question Clarence
Speaker 1: about this because this is clearly an unhinged person. And
Speaker 1: she she does question him a lee and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: porn is my only vice and since I don't drink
Speaker 1: or run around like this is fine, right, Like I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not going out sleeping with people. I'm not
Speaker 1: going out and partying. All I do is enjoy my porn.
Speaker 1: What's the problem? Um? And he also told her that
Speaker 1: his magazines were all he had that was worth taking
Speaker 1: from his ruined marriage, which he has joint custody of
Speaker 1: the kid. Like, so that's a little messed up. Um wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Now maybe he was telling the truth about like not
Speaker 1: drinking and partying. That might be true. There are people
Speaker 1: who were with him at the time who claims no,
Speaker 1: he was also lying about that. One of them is
Speaker 1: his former girlfriend Lillian mckewen. Um. She says that he
Speaker 1: was not honest about the whole not drinking thing. In ninete,
Speaker 1: she went on the Larry King Show um and said
Speaker 1: that when the two had dated in the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: he was quote a raving alcoholic and that when he
Speaker 1: quit drinking he turned into a quote angry, obsessive man
Speaker 1: who bullied his son and I'm gonna quote from CNN here.
Speaker 1: When he gave up alcohol, she said, he became angry,
Speaker 1: short tempered, a sexual, and obsessive with ambition and what
Speaker 1: she called weird things such as long runs in the
Speaker 1: dark before Dawn Mickwen did back up the allegations of
Speaker 1: his weird porn thing, calling it quote something that was
Speaker 1: very important to him and something that he talked about.
Speaker 1: So that's weird. That's that's that's that's some stuff about
Speaker 1: about Clarence Thomas that I bet you didn't want to know. Definitely,
Speaker 1: you know everything in moderation, but not for Clarence. And
Speaker 1: it's hard to take someone seriously who's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't that's my only vice. No, Actually, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of other vices you have. But right, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's very interesting, very interesting. Yeah, and again behavior obviously
Speaker 1: in terms of like what you should take with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt. She is like going on the Larry
Speaker 1: King Live Show and talking on my TV about this,
Speaker 1: so you know, maybe maybe she's not entirely coming at
Speaker 1: this from an honest point of view. I don't know whatever,
Speaker 1: or she's like, well, who else can I tell about
Speaker 1: this maniac who might become a Supreme Court justice? I
Speaker 1: don't know what you do if you're in her situation
Speaker 1: and you have that experience. What she's saying doesn't sound
Speaker 1: separate from the person that many many co workers have
Speaker 1: talked about. At the very least, there are many inconsistent
Speaker 1: descriptions of this. Yes, in May of nineteen eight one,
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas was nominated by the Senate to take the
Speaker 1: position as chairman of the e e o C, his
Speaker 1: old stomping grounds. He was confirmed a few months later,
Speaker 1: and he held that position from nineteen eighty two to
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. So this is the primary thing he does
Speaker 1: in his entire career prior to becoming a Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 1: This is the longest stretch of employment in a single
Speaker 1: job that he has in his career prior to like
Speaker 1: getting on the court. Um. So, while this is happening,
Speaker 1: while while he is being the chairman of the e
Speaker 1: o C, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, thing of a jigger,
Speaker 1: Well that's going on. A doddering old man named Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan decided it was time to nominate a new justice
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. Due to Reagan's eight years of
Speaker 1: executive domination and the fact that it looked like George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush was about to basically be Reagan term number three.
Speaker 1: Progressives and liberals alike, we're worried that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: was about to take a hard right turn. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine how scary and it would be? Miles, Um, So
Speaker 1: people were concerned. Uh. In July of ven, Reagan announced
Speaker 1: that his nominee was going to be Circuit Court judge
Speaker 1: Robert Bork. Now does that name mean anything to you? Miles? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have heard of Robert Bork? You're you're aware
Speaker 1: of some of the sisters. Okay, good, good, good? That name.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't know how many other folks
Speaker 1: that that's like a thing that's familiar to if you
Speaker 1: grew up right wing, his name was kind of a
Speaker 1: rallying cry for like generations of right wing media hob goblins. Was,
Speaker 1: in short description, a dogshit judge. He had argued that
Speaker 1: political speech was the only kind of speech protected by
Speaker 1: the First amend It. He ruled in favor of a
Speaker 1: company who had forced their employees to undergo sterilization to
Speaker 1: keep their jobs. He had opposed the Civil Rights Act
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four for so long and with such
Speaker 1: vehemence that it's fair to assume he just hated certain
Speaker 1: colors of people. At one point, he argued in favor
Speaker 1: of a poll tax because it was quote very small.
Speaker 1: So Robert Bourke pretty bad judge, Yeah yeah, pretty yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And and he even became shorthand for Oh yes, we
Speaker 1: are talking about the shorthand. But you know we're talking
Speaker 1: about first miles, products, services, all that good stuff. Yes, Miles,
Speaker 1: you love products, don't you, m And do you happen
Speaker 1: to like services? Oh? My god? Oh yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: ship that That's what gets my nipples hard. Is a
Speaker 1: good old fashioned service, A couple of products with it anyway,
Speaker 1: service lord, get your nipples hard with these ads. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're bad. Hi, everybody, how's it going. So we've got
Speaker 1: Robert Bork dogshit Judge Ronald Reagan nominates this man to
Speaker 1: be a Supreme Court justice, and Senator Ted Kennedy, uh
Speaker 1: the number two Ted k and this podcast takes to
Speaker 1: the Senate floor to warn that putting Burke on the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court would mean an into row versus weight and
Speaker 1: a return to segregated lunch counters. He said that if
Speaker 1: Burke were appointed, quote, the doors of the federal courts
Speaker 1: would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens
Speaker 1: for whom the judiciary is and is often the only
Speaker 1: protector of the individual rights that are at the heart
Speaker 1: of our democracy now. In addition to being a howling fascist,
Speaker 1: Bork was a pretty well respected law guy in log
Speaker 1: eye circles, because log i circles are mostly made up
Speaker 1: of assholes. He had taught it Yale. His students had
Speaker 1: included Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Anita Hill
Speaker 1: and Jerry Brown. Um. Many on the right were very
Speaker 1: much fans of his Circuit court rulings, which included Droninberg Vzek,
Speaker 1: where he and Justice Scalia. This is before Scalia was
Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court. Either had ruled that there was
Speaker 1: no right to privacy that protected the right to have
Speaker 1: homosexual sex. During a case over prayer in school, in
Speaker 1: reference to a Jewish person who was forced to engage
Speaker 1: in Christian prayer, Robert Bourke said, so what, I'm sure
Speaker 1: he got over it. He's like, yeah, bad judge. I
Speaker 1: would say, not my kind of judge. You know who,
Speaker 1: My kind of judges That judge from the who framed
Speaker 1: Roger Rabbit. That's a good judge. I support. Now. I look, Miles.
Speaker 1: For years and years I've been saying that the primary
Speaker 1: crisis we as a society have is the expansion of Tunetown,
Speaker 1: and I I agree we have to get rid of
Speaker 1: those tunes. Miles. Oh, absolutely, we've got to turin their asses.
Speaker 1: The thing is the people, The I guess, if you
Speaker 1: want to call them, people that live in Tunetown are
Speaker 1: sitting on such a bed of resources that they are
Speaker 1: on able to use properly. And that's right, properly because
Speaker 1: they're so I don't want to say on advance, they're
Speaker 1: so primitive, right, and I think they're better Thank you
Speaker 1: for saying, yeah, I think they're better off being relocated.
Speaker 1: I agree as properly. Yeah, yeah, exactly tons of desert. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this is a distermination of cartoons podcast Um who supports
Speaker 1: what's his name? I forget the name of the judge
Speaker 1: in that movie. It's played by Doc Brown. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you all know. So the nineteen eighties of the first decade,
Speaker 1: also the decade in which we get who framed Roger Rabbit?
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, um, are the first decade in
Speaker 1: which Supreme Court hearings uh like aur a thing Baron
Speaker 1: von Rotten, judge Doom, there you go, thank you. So
Speaker 1: we don't really have like public hearings for Supreme Court
Speaker 1: justices prior to the eighties, UM, and in fact, prior
Speaker 1: to the eighties, it had been pretty uncommon for Supreme
Speaker 1: Court nominees to like go before the Senate and answer
Speaker 1: questions at all. Um. Bork is the first nominee ever
Speaker 1: to get a televised Senate hearing, which doesn't make things
Speaker 1: better because maybe it's bad to do stuff like this.
Speaker 1: Maybe it inherently turns it into like a media circus
Speaker 1: that that like puts it to the worst impulses of everybody,
Speaker 1: but whatever, um. So, the first America's first experience like
Speaker 1: watching a Supreme Court like nomination hearing, uh is seeing
Speaker 1: Ted Kennedy like go after Robert Bork while he's up
Speaker 1: in front of the Senate UM. And by October. You
Speaker 1: know the thing, The good thing about this is by
Speaker 1: October a majority of Americans opposed borks nomination, so he
Speaker 1: actually he comes in probably having the job locked down,
Speaker 1: and the fact that this is all televised means that
Speaker 1: most people are like, oh, this guy's a fucking maniac.
Speaker 1: So I guess you could say then that part that
Speaker 1: the televised Supreme Court hearings we're a good thing. He
Speaker 1: gets rejected on October twenty three, by a vote of
Speaker 1: fifty eight to forty two. But here's where the problem
Speaker 1: comes in. The right cries foul, which they do whenever
Speaker 1: anything happens, even when they get their way, because it
Speaker 1: consistently works for them. Now, in their minds, Bork had
Speaker 1: been unfairly pilloried, subject to the political equivalent of a
Speaker 1: mob beating um. There are comparisons to a lynch mob, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, Robert Bourke probably thinks is fine um
Speaker 1: because he's that guy. Uh. And But whatever the fact case,
Speaker 1: the sense of grievance over Bork's nomination gets burned deep
Speaker 1: into the conservative soul um and it is it is
Speaker 1: still smoldering a few years later in nineteen when a
Speaker 1: woman named Florence Kennedy tells a National Organization of Women
Speaker 1: conference that when it comes to Clarence Thomas, who is
Speaker 1: the next Supreme Court nominee, quote, we're going to bork him.
Speaker 1: We're going to kill him politically for this little creep.
Speaker 1: Where did he come from? So that is how borking
Speaker 1: becomes a thing that people talk about. Also, love the
Speaker 1: troll job that we got out of that because he
Speaker 1: was like no one has privacy rights. And then they're like,
Speaker 1: here's your video rental history, and they're like, because no
Speaker 1: one has privacy rights right, And then there then we
Speaker 1: get like the Video Privacy Act out of that too.
Speaker 1: He's just the gift that keeps on giving. He is,
Speaker 1: he is. We've gotten everything, Thank you, Clarence. So since then,
Speaker 1: according to box quote. In January two thousand one, The
Speaker 1: New York Times even featured a chart of quote likely
Speaker 1: bor keys and their probable score on the Borkometer, referring
Speaker 1: to political nominees for high level positions within the Bush administration.
Speaker 1: John Ashcroft, for instance, received nine borks. Now you might
Speaker 1: note that John Ashcroft did not get borked. Most of
Speaker 1: these guys don't. It's it's just like a term that
Speaker 1: gets us, probably because bork is fun. It is fun
Speaker 1: to say, fun to type bork. I get it. Like,
Speaker 1: if you're you're a New York Times columnists, most of
Speaker 1: your job is going to be pretty pretty dull, and
Speaker 1: you get to use the word bork. You know why not?
Speaker 1: You know what I just realized, there's I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: in four year old virgin that's what Steve Carell's says
Speaker 1: when he's playing the poker game and he's trying like
Speaker 1: lying about being a virgin. They're like you are you
Speaker 1: a versions like no, I've born plenty of women. And
Speaker 1: Seth Rogan's like, you've borked just like this one line
Speaker 1: and yeah, maybe in a minute that I'm like, I
Speaker 1: always just thought of it. I'm like, wow, are you
Speaker 1: getting is Steve Currel showing is like forty year old
Speaker 1: like eighties brain credit there? Okay, so he's appreciate he's
Speaker 1: thinking about has that movie aged? Is that is that one?
Speaker 1: Is that one still good? Or is that one? Feel
Speaker 1: great about? Flawless flawless flawless flaws That's that's good just
Speaker 1: like other classic films. Uh, you don't need to talk
Speaker 1: about Jim Carrey's ubra. So Borking is now viewed as
Speaker 1: a widely used practice among both Republicans and Democrats, although
Speaker 1: it generally means attempting to bring down a high level
Speaker 1: candidate with quote personal attacks on something seemingly irrelevant to
Speaker 1: their jobs, even though that's not what anyone did to
Speaker 1: Bork because the attacks were extremely relevant to the fact
Speaker 1: that he was basically a fascist, like food have been
Speaker 1: more relevant to the guy Bork was these attacks. Um.
Speaker 1: But for example, Bill Clinton's first choice for Attorney General,
Speaker 1: Zoe Baird, was borked in ninety three when news came
Speaker 1: out that she had hired an undocumented immigrant as nanny
Speaker 1: for her children. Uh, and her nomination gets withdrawn, Which
Speaker 1: is I guess a borking if you're talking about it
Speaker 1: being irrelevant, um, because I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 1: that has a lot to do with it unless she's
Speaker 1: like super anti undocumented immigration, in which case than it
Speaker 1: is relevant. But I don't think she was so. But again,
Speaker 1: it's also like, hold on, like, how many of your
Speaker 1: businesses are doing the same thing? Well, nobody wants to
Speaker 1: answer that question, Miles, Yes, exactly. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: It's don't do as I do, just as I say. So.
Speaker 1: The largest political consequence of the borking of Robert Bork
Speaker 1: was that the the Reagan administration UH massively let down
Speaker 1: the right wing of the Republican Party right because Bork.
Speaker 1: They fucking love Bork. Like, the fucking wing nuts are
Speaker 1: all about this guy and he doesn't get in and
Speaker 1: they feel like Reagan didn't fight enough for him, right,
Speaker 1: They feel like the rhinos let them down and didn't
Speaker 1: push this guy. So Reagan does get another justice in it.
Speaker 1: I forget exactly which fucking one it is, but they're
Speaker 1: not a lunatic um. And so the right wing gets
Speaker 1: very angry about that and this, yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: was Kennedy um. And so conservatives start to feel like, well,
Speaker 1: we're owed a right wing justice. We didn't get what
Speaker 1: we are owed, and that, my man, is where Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas comes again, say too, or the make good for
Speaker 1: Bork is Clarence Thomas. Yeah. We feel like we deserve
Speaker 1: a guy who hates civil rights and wants to turn
Speaker 1: the clock back a hundred years, and we wanted this
Speaker 1: like howling white nationalist, but instead we'll take Clarence Thomas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now you got Neil Bork and Bork Cavanaugh, Amy
Speaker 1: Can Bork and Pork Barrett and I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think if I made a joke about
Speaker 1: borking them, it would probably wind up getting us on
Speaker 1: some lists. Sophie, Yeah, Hi, Hi, how you doing getting
Speaker 1: on some lists? And the sick nightclubs excellent? So we
Speaker 1: should probably talk a little bit now about the man
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas replaced on the Supreme Court with the borking.
Speaker 1: That's it. You got it out of your system. I did, Sophie,
Speaker 1: thank you. I got it out of here. I made
Speaker 1: a lot of actionable threats in my basement before coming
Speaker 1: up here. So we're we're fine, okay, cool, cool, cool,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and now we're moving on to somebody that's
Speaker 1: really awesome or yeah. Third Good Marshall was pretty pretty based, actually, Sophie,
Speaker 1: pretty dope. Also of what you said earlier, Robert, when
Speaker 1: you're talking, you threatened Scotus and he said, I'm coming
Speaker 1: for all of you. Call me Ernest bork nine. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right. I did say that. Miles, Um,
Speaker 1: I gotta go, man. Hilarious. Third Good Marshal number one,
Speaker 1: probably the best name of judge has ever had. That's
Speaker 1: a judge name. Like if you're like a third grade
Speaker 1: teacher and a kid comes into your class named third
Speaker 1: Good Marshal, you're like, well, that motherfucker's gonna become a judge, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's basically like what you're not. You don't get
Speaker 1: to be. You don't get to be Third Good Marshal
Speaker 1: and be like, I don't know um like a like
Speaker 1: a like a like a chemistry teacher, or like a
Speaker 1: like a even you couldn't be like a nurse Third
Speaker 1: Good Marshal, Like if I win with the hospital and
Speaker 1: I I came across a nurse named third Good Marshall.
Speaker 1: Get the funk out of here. You're supposed to be
Speaker 1: a judge going get good into a courtroom. Well night,
Speaker 1: you're selling me n f T S No, Ma, get
Speaker 1: your ass in some robes. That ship's a judge's name.
Speaker 1: Um so pretty cool guy, they're Good Marshall. The year
Speaker 1: after Clarence Thomas starts public school, Marshall is the lawyer
Speaker 1: who wins Brown versus the Board of Edgucation, which is
Speaker 1: one of the most consequential cases in legal history anywhere
Speaker 1: in the world. H Marshal the great grandson of an
Speaker 1: enslaved person himself. Whence goes through the public education system,
Speaker 1: Unlike Thomas, he spends his entire education in segregated school,
Speaker 1: so he actually like goes lives in entirely under segregation
Speaker 1: as like a person who's being educated as a kid.
Speaker 1: He gets his law degree in nineteen thirty three from
Speaker 1: Howard University, and he becomes a litigator for the Double
Speaker 1: A CP. In Brown, his most famous case, he argued r. E.
Speaker 1: Segregation that quote, this court should make it clear that
Speaker 1: it is not what our Constitution stands for. He was
Speaker 1: a believer in the Constitution as a living document, one
Speaker 1: that could be used to push for greater equality and
Speaker 1: liberty for all. As a lawyer for the Double a CP,
Speaker 1: Marshall won several landmark Supreme Court cases. In Smith v.
Speaker 1: All Right, he helped overturn long standing rules that made
Speaker 1: it illegal for black people to vote in party primary
Speaker 1: elections in certain states that used to be legal for
Speaker 1: parties like there the party and like whatever state to
Speaker 1: be like no, no no, no, we don't. You guys don't
Speaker 1: get to vote in the primaries. Only white people can
Speaker 1: vote in the primaries. Um. In Shelley v. Kramer, he
Speaker 1: forced the Court to rule against laws that restricted non
Speaker 1: white people from purchasing homes and specific neighborhoods, And in
Speaker 1: Sweat the Painter, he got the Court to rule that
Speaker 1: universities could not reject applicants based on race, all of
Speaker 1: which is like pretty cool ship, um, and also like
Speaker 1: it's just wild to like these aren't complex illegal arguments
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, how about like we don't do this
Speaker 1: ship And they're like this seems racist as fun, And
Speaker 1: everybody says, wow, you are the first person to say
Speaker 1: that in the United States Council. What is your argument
Speaker 1: that this is racist trash? Uh? Okay, we're very pro
Speaker 1: racist trash. So and see that's the fucking problem. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we can't be doing that anymore. Oh, interesting, fascinating argument.
Speaker 1: No one has made this before Their Good Marshall. Perhaps
Speaker 1: perhaps we are all all human he is. You might
Speaker 1: look at Third Good Marshall as the guy that Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas told his grandfather he wanted to be um in
Speaker 1: addition to just being like one of the coolest guys
Speaker 1: to ever be associated with US government in any capacity,
Speaker 1: Like just a pretty pretty dope dude, all things considered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like if like yeah, people in American politics were like wrestlers,
Speaker 1: Like the felt that their Good Marshall would run into
Speaker 1: the arena with yeah, oh yeah, Third Good Marshall's the
Speaker 1: guy who like racism is like doing his doing his
Speaker 1: little patter on stage for the audience, and then Third
Speaker 1: Good Marshall comes in and hits him with a yeah,
Speaker 1: my god, exactly, that's exactly what happens. Yeah. Um, so
Speaker 1: it's probably worth noting that two of the three cases
Speaker 1: that we just talked about arose from lawsuits in the
Speaker 1: state of Texas. Um. I do feel like that's worth acknowledging. Okay,
Speaker 1: bring Texas right back in. Yeah, never far when we're
Speaker 1: talking about racism. Uh. If this had been the total
Speaker 1: of Marshall's career, he would go down in history as
Speaker 1: one of the most influential legal minds ever. But all
Speaker 1: of that was just a prelude. On August thirtieth, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, the Senate confirmed him as the first black
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice in a sixty nine to eleven floor vote.
Speaker 1: I want to quote now from a write up by
Speaker 1: then double a CP on Marshall's quarter century on the Court. Quote.
Speaker 1: Marshall fought for affirmative action for minorities, held strong against
Speaker 1: the death penalty, and supported a woman's right to choose
Speaker 1: if an apportion was appropriate for her. The civil rights
Speaker 1: lawyer turned Supreme Court justice made made a significant impact
Speaker 1: on American society and culture. His mission was equal justice
Speaker 1: for all. Marshall used the power of the courts to
Speaker 1: fight racism and discrimination, tear down Jim Crow segregation, change
Speaker 1: the status quo, and make life better for the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable in our nation. So you know, real fucking cool guy,
Speaker 1: pretty cool guys getting all that ship done. Okay. You
Speaker 1: know who else is a cool guy? Miles? The products
Speaker 1: and services that support this podcast, they also want to
Speaker 1: change the status quo in your wallet, and I heard
Speaker 1: Third Good Marshal would have used all of them. That's right,
Speaker 1: That's right, every product we have on this by the
Speaker 1: ghost of their good Marshal depositing that casually and honestly,
Speaker 1: I feel like Third Good Marshall probably would use that website.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, oh yeah, And you know what
Speaker 1: he wouldn't use is any products sponsored by the pod
Speaker 1: Save America people, none of those just behind the bastards products. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: He said that to me at a seance. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: he that's you You start doing is making murder rate.
Speaker 1: It's they're good, Marshal, and it's in a quote says
Speaker 1: I funk with cool Zone, not crooked. That's right, that's right,
Speaker 1: fuck them, that's what they're good. Marshal would probably say,
Speaker 1: so if you're we allowed to do that? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: we did it, so oh we're back and we're talking.
Speaker 1: Think about what products they're good? Marshal would love. You
Speaker 1: know what I think, Miles, I think they're good. Marshal
Speaker 1: would enjoy the convenience of Amazon Prime. You know, hearsay,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you know what I hear third good. Marshal's
Speaker 1: perfect morning is to take his bird scooter down to
Speaker 1: Starbucks Big Break, high five all of the very happy
Speaker 1: workers they're uh and who don't need to unionize, no,
Speaker 1: not at all, and to remind them how good they
Speaker 1: have it because of his work, and to stay elastic.
Speaker 1: They're good. Then throw the hot coffee in the face
Speaker 1: of the Amazon Prime delivery person who's too late and
Speaker 1: slow with the elastic re usable bandages that he needs
Speaker 1: for his dog's injured foot. That's right, that's right. And
Speaker 1: you know what else I think they're good. Marshal would
Speaker 1: have liked is Netflix. And I want to quote now
Speaker 1: from from a Supreme Court ruling in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: a majority opinion authored by Marshall quote, I fucking love
Speaker 1: it when I turn on an app and the immediately
Speaker 1: start screaming at me, just loudly playing a trailer that
Speaker 1: I didn't ask to play. That is my favorite thing
Speaker 1: as their good Marshal Supreme Court Justice. Wow, wow powerful.
Speaker 1: I love to hear that. Yeah. And also and then
Speaker 1: he also said, and also this is I'm surprised you
Speaker 1: glossed over the second part of that quote, which is, I,
Speaker 1: for one, would never share my password unless it's for
Speaker 1: in my home one password, one use per account. If
Speaker 1: Netflix efford becomes a thing in the future, is what
Speaker 1: I think. As they're good, Marshal, Supreme Court Justice, the
Speaker 1: greatest regret, for greatest regret as a Supreme Court justice
Speaker 1: was not actually reeling in the rampant criminals. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right he saw so. Um. Yeah, as American men
Speaker 1: in positions of power go, Marshal is pretty much your
Speaker 1: best case scenario, right, just just about the best legacy
Speaker 1: any any man with power has in in modern US history.
Speaker 1: But by the later half of the Reagan administration, he
Speaker 1: is an old man. Uh, he is not in very
Speaker 1: good health. He has a bunch of fucking health problems,
Speaker 1: as most old people do. Um. The Court hadn't taken
Speaker 1: a distinct right word tilt in the last years that
Speaker 1: he served, and Marshall found himself constantly writing minority dissents
Speaker 1: while the Reagan administration started to claw back some of
Speaker 1: the gains of the civil rights era. Um At a
Speaker 1: press conference, he was asked how he wanted to be remembered,
Speaker 1: and Marshall replied as someone who that he wanted to
Speaker 1: be remembered as someone who quote did what he could
Speaker 1: with what he had, which is a very sad that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that breaks my heart. You don't want that to
Speaker 1: be what the brown versus the Board of Education guy
Speaker 1: sees his legacy in the Reagan as the Reagan years
Speaker 1: come to because that's the excuse Joe Biden is using
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah it is. Come on, man, I'm doing
Speaker 1: what I can what I got. Fucking third, good Marshall
Speaker 1: sitimately did everything he reasonably away. He's like, fuck man,
Speaker 1: they really, they're they're packing this motherfucker in with these
Speaker 1: weird Yeah. Now, Clarence Thomas, for his part, seems to
Speaker 1: have hated their good Marshall. In the Enigma of Clarence Thomas,
Speaker 1: Cory Robin writes, quote Thomas had dismissed Marshall's liberal views
Speaker 1: as exasperating and incomprehensible. His rendition of the Constitution as
Speaker 1: a race baiting vision that alienates all Americans, and Pitt's
Speaker 1: blacks against the Founders, which how do you not. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: black people against the Founders. Yeah, they were most most
Speaker 1: of them were pretty racists. So yes, I guess I
Speaker 1: guess they should be. Yeah, that's fine. I guess that
Speaker 1: they should be. I guess the Founders pitted themselves against
Speaker 1: black people by owning them. No, no, no, they are
Speaker 1: much more passive in enslaving people. That's a passive activity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's fine. So yeah, that's pretty bad, right, That's
Speaker 1: that's not good. That's not good, I would say so.
Speaker 1: In Marshall's last year's Ronald Reagan appointed four Supreme Court
Speaker 1: Justices Sandrad O'Connor, William Reynquist, Anton and Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy.
Speaker 1: And look, I don't like a lot of those folks,
Speaker 1: but I have to say all of those really good
Speaker 1: judge names. Honestly, oh yeah, oh my god, what an
Speaker 1: incredible judge name. And Anthony Kennedy awesome judge name. Just
Speaker 1: really none of them are third good Marshall level judge names.
Speaker 1: But those are all solid judge tony kay. Yeah, boy,
Speaker 1: not just a drug dealer out of rave. Yeah, Sandra
Speaker 1: de O'Connor to three, you gotta have three, you know,
Speaker 1: that's what really that really drives at home, I mean
Speaker 1: John Connor, Yeah, exactly, feeling like terminator, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: Take it to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I believe his fake name
Speaker 1: in True Lives was Harry rank Wist. Well, see that's miles.
Speaker 1: We're through the looking glass here. Yeah, sorry, folks, I
Speaker 1: did mushrooms this weekend. A lot of memories are coming
Speaker 1: to the top. So, despite how right way Scalia would
Speaker 1: turn out to be, this selection of judges and these
Speaker 1: are like over the course of the Reagan administration really
Speaker 1: pisses off American religious conservatives because all of those people
Speaker 1: are not right wing gooules. Right, they're kind of mostly
Speaker 1: more centrists and stuff in their actual rulings and and
Speaker 1: often stuff. Yeah, with the exception of Scalia, most of
Speaker 1: them kind of move more towards the center in time, um,
Speaker 1: which really pisses off the far right. So again with
Speaker 1: this and with Robert Borke, they see themselves as having
Speaker 1: been betrayed repeatedly by an admitts. Reagan came to power
Speaker 1: on the back of the religious right. He was supposed
Speaker 1: to be their guy, and they're like, he didn't give
Speaker 1: us everything we wanted. So when Reagan leaves office and
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush becomes president, um, he gets a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court nomination, and instead of picking a guy the
Speaker 1: right wing fucking loves, he picks a dude named Thomas Suitor,
Speaker 1: who is center right. Um, and this is again not enough.
Speaker 1: And and in fact, the right wing sees this is
Speaker 1: like the worst sin imaginable. Um, and this is a
Speaker 1: real problem. But because again you have to get this
Speaker 1: guy confirmed. And at this point they're like pretty piste off,
Speaker 1: Bush's chief of staff, Johnson Unu, manages to get the
Speaker 1: religious right in line behind Suitor by promising that hey,
Speaker 1: fucking third good Marshal is not going to be around
Speaker 1: that much longer. When he quits, we will replace him
Speaker 1: with the worst piece of ship you can imagine. Like,
Speaker 1: I fucking promise this time, we have your back. Let's
Speaker 1: give me one more shot, man, give us one more
Speaker 1: shot where we will get a fucking ghouler. There. I
Speaker 1: swear I got, I got a real, real shitty, hefty
Speaker 1: bag full of crap, just bacon in the sun filling
Speaker 1: up with gas that I got for you. You're gonna
Speaker 1: love this guy, speaking of nominative determinal determinism, Johnson Unu.
Speaker 1: That is the name of a piece of ship whose
Speaker 1: entire job is to like whip fascists in behind, like
Speaker 1: backing corporate tax breaks. Like, my god, that's the guy.
Speaker 1: That's the name you give that get Johnson Unu. Are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Anyways, it's it's not wrong, it's not.
Speaker 1: Through the Reagan years and into the early Bush administration,
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas, while he's doing his ship at the e
Speaker 1: o C worked relentlessly to burnish his street credit with
Speaker 1: the far right. This meant he had to do a
Speaker 1: lot of explaining away his past civil rights activism, which
Speaker 1: he accomplished definitely by pivoting to complaining about how bad
Speaker 1: the Civil rights era had been for black people. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote now from the New York that's pretty good, right,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Oh my god, it's so disingenuous. In
Speaker 1: his memoir, Thomas notes that part of the appeal of
Speaker 1: black nationalism was tied to his sense. In the wake
Speaker 1: of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. And Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy that no one was going to take care of
Speaker 1: me or any other black person in America. Eventually, this
Speaker 1: notion extended to the left. I marched, I protested, I
Speaker 1: asked the government to help black people, Thomas told The
Speaker 1: Washington Post in nineteen eighty I did all those things,
Speaker 1: but it hasn't worked. The whole repertoire of black politics,
Speaker 1: from mainstream activism to black power radicalism and beyond, now
Speaker 1: seemed pointless. By the eighties, Thomas, a member of the
Speaker 1: ray An administration, believe that state action could do nothing
Speaker 1: for African Americans. Problems of racial inequality cannot be solved
Speaker 1: by law, even civil rights laws, he told an audience
Speaker 1: at Clark College, historically black school in Atlanta in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. In a nineteen eighties seven speech to the
Speaker 1: Heritage Foundation, Thomas stated his belief that principled conservatism should
Speaker 1: quote make it clear to blacks that conservatives are not
Speaker 1: hostile to them, but instead that conservative views are the
Speaker 1: only real way to support black success. He repeatedly stated
Speaker 1: his belief that if you could get the whole racial
Speaker 1: issue out of the left right paradigm, most black people
Speaker 1: would see that they were really conservative. I mean there's
Speaker 1: some truth to elements of that. There are there is
Speaker 1: some truth. That's part of why it's worked. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh the amount of work this guy, my god, yeah,
Speaker 1: and should he's saying that's rooted in truth. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: a lot of I wouldn't call it the left, but
Speaker 1: the most liberals don't really want to do any more
Speaker 1: than you, Like race and civil rights is like a
Speaker 1: fucking whipping boy issue to hurt the right. Like absolutely,
Speaker 1: there there are a lot of false friends among the
Speaker 1: left in terms of civil rights advocacy. Yeah. The yeah,
Speaker 1: the for like liberals, it's more like being like a
Speaker 1: whiny guy being like, well, I mean you really should
Speaker 1: be with us if you really think about it, like
Speaker 1: without being like, but I'm not going to do any
Speaker 1: of the work. You're not gonna do any move towards
Speaker 1: liberation for you. But if you think about it like
Speaker 1: you can do with them, it's like there's again, there's
Speaker 1: these elements of truth. And then he's like, and so
Speaker 1: that's why I'm just like lining up behind the racists, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that's what makes it okay. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes it also so like insidious too. Like you
Speaker 1: you just find that little shred where you can say
Speaker 1: that's the truth and like and that's how I justify
Speaker 1: the absolute ushering in of the hell world. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: speaking of the hell world. Most of the claims that
Speaker 1: Thomas made about the origins of his own conservatives were
Speaker 1: rooted in absolute, bold faced lies about his background. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote again from Strange Justice. According to Sam Williams,
Speaker 1: Thomas's lack of gratitude for what his grandfather and the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement had done for him formed the beginning
Speaker 1: of an estrangement that became so irreparable. The two were
Speaker 1: barely on speaking terms at the time of Anderson's death
Speaker 1: in the spring of nineteen eighty three. What made his
Speaker 1: grandfather's bitterness particularly sharp was the sense that Thomas had
Speaker 1: betrayed him, according to Williams, who said that early on,
Speaker 1: Thomas used to tell his grandfather he was going to
Speaker 1: be a civil rights lawyer and come back here and
Speaker 1: help his people. Instead, Thomas just helped Thomas he saw
Speaker 1: that the money and career opportunities were on the other side.
Speaker 1: His grandfather was so disappointed he hardly spoke of Thomas
Speaker 1: in the later years. Yet, in his public speeches, including
Speaker 1: his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Thomas spoke often about how
Speaker 1: much he loved and admired his grandfather. It is likely
Speaker 1: that his sense of gratitude grew in the years after
Speaker 1: his grandfather's death. He did, after all, keep a photo
Speaker 1: of his grandfather on his desk at the E O C.
Speaker 1: But both Sam Williams and W. W. Law also charged
Speaker 1: tom Us with distorting the truth about his upbringing for
Speaker 1: political effect. In an interview, Law said, I don't like
Speaker 1: talking about this because Thomas is local and that makes
Speaker 1: it very hard. He didn't shut his eyes, and then
Speaker 1: an agitated voice added, Thomas just said those things to
Speaker 1: make him seem black. But all along he's been making
Speaker 1: choices to benefit Thomas and no one else. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: sounds about right, Mr lizard brain. Yeah, and just like, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't like the time to actually express like love
Speaker 1: and admiration for my grandfather is publicly in books, even
Speaker 1: though we're not really talking, because I think the fact
Speaker 1: that my grandfather was a hardass and mean will sell
Speaker 1: with conservatives, even though he was a committed civil rights activist.
Speaker 1: For all of his flaws, like I am going to
Speaker 1: paint him as like the the platonic ideal of a
Speaker 1: right wing dad because he was a dick. Uh God,
Speaker 1: he's so opportunistic and you just see like whenever there's
Speaker 1: an opportunity to you know, create or add more weight
Speaker 1: to the myth about him, like he's going to do
Speaker 1: that anything. Yeah. But you know what, Miles, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what, Miles. You know. What I do
Speaker 1: know is that it's time for you to give your
Speaker 1: plug doubles. M Well, uh, I don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: just steal some catalytic converters to be Yeah, yeah, Jack
Speaker 1: a fucking catalytic converter. Yeah, I think, Oh that's what
Speaker 1: I want to plug. I got a new I have
Speaker 1: a new uh. It's a new shirt that I made.
Speaker 1: It's designed for people who steal catalytic converters because that
Speaker 1: has a rigid back plate with whe so you're just
Speaker 1: immediately you see something, get on your back, slide under
Speaker 1: clip it. You're out hop in their homies civic and
Speaker 1: you're off. Baby. Uh. They're called cat shirts. Check them
Speaker 1: out at cat shirts, dot me out. That's how I
Speaker 1: throw the authorities off. But it's for stealing catalytic converters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that that website exists absolutely, dot me out.
Speaker 1: I think it's only fair here to quote their good
Speaker 1: Marshall once more, who said in a in a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven ruling quote, I dream of the day in
Speaker 1: which a man is able to steal a catalytic converter
Speaker 1: in less than nineties seconds, even if the car has
Speaker 1: skid plates protecting it. Wow. There it is again ahead
Speaker 1: of his time, ahead of his time, and your products
Speaker 1: ahead of the rest of the market. Yeah. Um, so
Speaker 1: follow us at cat hurts me oo on all over
Speaker 1: and if you're interested in me the creator of the
Speaker 1: product that, check me out at miles of Ground, Twitter
Speaker 1: and Instagram. And remember, listen to me on my other show,
Speaker 1: Daily Night Guys before we talking about all kinds of
Speaker 1: tips for stealen those cats converts. And remember, folks, every
Speaker 1: car that is capable of driving is a policy failure.
Speaker 1: Steal more cats. There it is. Uh, we did it,
Speaker 1: We did it. Everybody